Crash
by Brianna.T.Wedge
Summary: Hardship makes us realize things we never knew - or tried to find out - before. And sometimes we just need to be hit in the face by it to even see it. Rimmer/Lister slash
1. Chapter 1

Noise. There was noise. And pain – so much pain. They were connected somehow. Cackling, heat… burning. Burning heat and pain. Slowly the scene grew, the noises became more defined. Lister groaned as he became aware of his body once more. That was one hell of a blow to the head. Wearily, he opened his eyes to his surroundings. He saw bright orange flashes dancing across his vision, and slowly became aware of it being fire. Then it hit him why it was so hard to breathe – the smoke was choking him. That, and it felt like he had broken his ribs. In fact, it felt like he had broken every bone in his body. But he was able to move, so that seemed unlikely. Lister raised his head to wipe the liquid trickling down his head out of his eyes and smear it across his face so it didn't keep running.

As he tried to get up, or at least drag himself a few inches, he felt a new pain – a cold dread deep inside as he regained his memories. The fire – wasn't just a fire. It was a wreckage. He noticed the shattered debris that littered the earth around him, the remnants of his ship. Some burnt to a blackened crisp, others splattered with blood. Lister coughed again, and then another wave of icy dread washed over him… Rimmer.

"Rimmer." He blearily uttered, although trying his hardest to shout. Lister tried not to scream in agony from his wounds, but he doubted he could have anyway.

Lister managed to drag himself in the fuel-soaked earth a few feet before crying out for Rimmer again. Lister still felt disorientated, but was filled with a determination to find his friend. Once the pain subsided, or he became used to it – he wasn't sure – Lister was able to rise to a crawl. He was still far too dizzy to stand, but crawling amongst the wreckage seemed sufficient. Besides, Rimmer had been right next to him when they crashed, he couldn't have gone too far.

After what felt like hours of searching, in reality only a few minutes, Lister found Rimmer.  
"No, no Rimmer!" He shouted, more audibly this time, as he rushed to his comrade's side. Rimmer's body was broken and stained with blood, massive lacerations revealing far too much of his insides than Lister wanted to see. Bone speared from his right thigh, his muscle and tendons showing in his left arm, his torso was exposed with many small cuts upon it, and his head looked worse than Lister's felt. Noticing that the ground was covered in unburnt fuel, and that there were fires all about, Lister came to the deduction that he had to get out of there. Rushing to action, he grabbed Rimmer under the shoulders, not caring about pain or damaged caused. There would be more damage if they both burst into flame.

Amazingly, Lister managed to drag Rimmer to a safe distance from the burning rubble. Now that the danger of exploding had passed, Lister tried to awaken Rimmer. Without the dancing firelight, his wounds seemed less severe. Well, less open and bloody than before. But he noticed something was wrong. His head was throbbing, and his thoughts still vague, but there was something definitely not right.  
"Rimmer… Rimmer! Wake up, man." Lister said as he shook gently on his shoulder. But he was motionless.

Wait, motionless. Then it hit him in a panic – Rimmer wasn't breathing.  
"Oh god man, don't do this…" He uttered as he pressed an ear to the bloodied chest. Shock settled in as he couldn't hear a thing beating beneath the skin.  
"Oh smeg, oh smeg!" Lister shouted, as he began to push down on Rimmer's chest. All of the medical supplies, the emergency kit – were in the flaming wreckage, most likely in pieces themselves. Lister clamped his mouth down on to Rimmer's, relieved to find it still fairly warm, and exhaled as much as he could. It pained his chest where he suspected snapped ribs – but that was irrelevant now. It was hard to keep a steady rate of compressions in such a frantic state, but Lister was determined.  
"Rimmer come on, wake up – breathe you smeg head!" Lister panted. "Look I won't make fun of you anymore. I can't lose you man…just breathe, please."

Tears ran down his cheeks as he kept breathing for Rimmer – but knew it wasn't going to do much good. CPR kept people alive enough to be saved, it didn't bring them back. There was only one thing to do.


	2. Chapter 2

"Don't you dare die on me." Lister warned the motionless body as he sprang up and ran – awkwardly and in less than a straight line – back to the remains of the ship. The smoke stung his eyes, but he didn't care. He moved faster than ever before, scouring the rubble for the emergency kit. Every second was precious. Thanking whatever god was still out there, he found it – still intact. Sprinting – though wobbly still – back to Rimmer, Lister gave him a couple more breaths of oxygen before ripping open the container and attaching the little stickers to Rimmer's chest. He grabbed the wireless button that went with the 'paddles' of the defibrillator, and pressed it hard. Rimmer's body jumped with the shock, and then lay still straight afterwards. The little lights were still red, so he waited until his button lit again before pressing it to send another shock to Rimmer. Lister couldn't help but sob while he did this. He knew he cared for Rimmer much more than he let on, but had no idea this much.  
"Please…please…." Lister pleaded.

Lister's heart jumped when the lights flashed green, indicating a heartbeat. He clasped his mouth on Rimmer's again and exhaled, and was met with the most wonderful sound he thought he ever heard – coughing. Rimmer opened his eyes for a few moments, and then passed out again – but he was alive.

Lister collapsed from shock and exhaustion, and just lay on the ground next to Rimmer, barely conscious.

Lister wasn't sure how long he lay there. It wasn't until Rimmer had started making noises again that he snapped back to reality. The fires of the ship had all but burnt out, leaving only charred remains behind. Not much for them to survive on. Lister didn't even know what planet they were on. Or why they crashed. Kryten had mentioned something about dimensions, but he'd been too drunk to pay that much attention. Maybe he would remember in the morning. That was another thing Lister thought…he didn't know when the sun rose on this planet, if it did at all. In the dark it was hard to tell if there was any life around – but Lister thought it was a forest that he was looking at behind him.

Rain started to fall from the sky, only a light drizzle, but enough to make the both of them wet. Lister decided to take his chances in the forest, because Rimmer really couldn't survive getting hypothermia right then. Picking up the other man underneath the arms, Lister dragged him into the cover of the forest. He suddenly realised just how tired he was. After making sure that Rimmer was still breathing, Lister laid his head down and quickly succumbed to sleep.

Lister woke, his head foggy. It took him a second to realise that the scenery that he had left behind when he closed his eyes wasn't what he was looking at now. In fact, it wasn't remotely forest-like: in fact, it was definitely Starbug-like. He must have passed out while asleep, because he didn't notice being moved.

"Kryten, man… thanks for finding me." Lister moaned as he struggled to look up from the bed. "Guess again, Smeghead."

Lister wrenched his eyes open at that sound. It wasn't Kryten or the Cat… it sounded familiarly like...  
"So, you wanna tell me what's goin on?"  
Yes. It was him. Dave Lister had been rescued by… Dave Lister.


	3. Chapter 3

Lister sat in his bed, stunned.  
"What…what?" he babbled as the other Lister came and sat down next to him. Lister suddenly darted his head around, looking for Rimmer.  
"Rimmer?"  
"Relax man, he's ok. We've just got him in the medi-bay. He was more badly hurt than you."  
"Well this is weird…" Lister began to say, and his other self chuckled.  
"We found you near a wreckage of Starbug. But I'm sorry man, we couldn't find any trace of Kryten or the Cat." Other Lister said solemnly.  
"No, they weren't with us – they're back on Red Dwarf."

Before the Other Lister could speak, Rimmer entered the room. Well, the Other Rimmer did. Not HIS Rimmer. The first thing that Dave noticed was that this Rimmer sported a large 'H' on his forehead.  
"You're a hologram?"  
"Oohh Listy, looks like you've run into yourself again. And he's just as eloquent as you are." The man said with a smile, before continuing.  
"Of course I'm a hologram you gimboid."  
"Cram it Rimmer, his version of you isn't. Let him wake up already."  
"Really? How?" this other dead version of Rimmer asked, and left to go and see for himself.

Dave sat up higher to look about the place.  
"Man, this place is a wreck – what happened to it?" Lister asked, looking at the debris and dirt scattered about the place.  
"Well sure it's a bit dirty but hey, I never could keep a place clean. Me room's not too bad though."  
"You _live_ in here? Why not on Red Dwarf?"  
"I told yeh, we lost it."  
"How the smeg do you lose something that big and red?"

The other Lister thought. _So this Lister, wherever he came from, still had Red Dwarf._ It was sounding more and more like they had travelled from a parallel universe. One from where they seemed to have it a hell of a lot better than they did. Lister was broken from his reverie by Lister getting out of his bed.  
"Hey – where you goin'?"  
"Ta see Arnold."

Lister didn't make a sound as he watched injured Lister hobble out of the room and down the corridor. He just followed.

It wasn't the first time he had encountered himself from somewhere. He had met parallel versions of himself, and future versions. He concluded that this Lister must have crossed into his universe from a parallel universe. That's probably what made him crash Starbug – even they had been knocked into a crash landing when they had met Ace for the first time. He was still following his parallel self into the medi-bay where his version of Rimmer was recovering, because somehow his version was still alive. Well, 'almost' when they found them. Kryten had tracked the distress call that their Starbug signalled. He didn't really understand it then, how they could be receiving a distress call from themselves…but it warranted further investigation anyway.

The parallel Lister arrived at parallel Rimmer's bedside. He seated himself next to Rimmer's head, and grabbed his hand.  
"You'll be right, Arn." Lister cooed, stroking Rimmer's forehead and short curly hair. Not-parallel Lister and dead Rimmer stood at the doorway, shocked and in disgust.  
"Lister what are you doing?"  
"I'm not doing anything –"  
"No not you, you gimboid, him."  
"…what you think I'm doin'?"  
"Why are you stroking my hair?"  
"It's not your hair…"  
"Lister be quiet and let Lister answer!"

"OK! This is just too complicated." Parallel Lister shouted, standing. "How about you call me Dave. And you can be Lister, since Rimmer and I just call each other by first name now anyway. So I'm Dave. You're Lister. You're Rimmer. And he's Arnold. Is that better?" Dave said, pointing at each member as he mentioned them.  
"Am I still me?" The Cat said, from behind Rimmer. No one knew that he had been listening in. Or that Kryten was with him.  
"Yes, Cat." Lister said patiently.

Dave gave Arnold a gentle kiss on his forehead before moving away.  
"I think we have a few things to talk about, guys. And I'm buggered – I need to lie down."  
They moved away and let Arnold rest in peace… back to yet another dreary metal room that was filthy. Their Starbug was in better condition, and whiter.

"Ok, so you would probably have noticed that Arn and I are a couple."  
There wasn't a word said from Lister or Rimmer…they just looked at each other and at Dave.  
"Think about it." Dave said, before lying back down on the bed and surrendering to the overwhelming exhaustion.

Lister was deep in thought. Sure, he knew he was an enlightened 23rd century guy that accepted homosexuality as being as normal as – well, heterosexuality. And while he knew he wasn't gay, he also knew that there was that inkling within himself that said being with a guy was normal too. He had thought about it before, but originally he had thought that it was only gay or straight. But then he looked into it further, and found that there was also bisexual. And there was this guy – kielser or something – that made a scale from 0 to 6. 0 being completely straight, 6 being completely gay. He'd always put himself at a 1. Maybe even a 2. Yes, definitely a 2 after meeting Ace. He never retaliated Rimmer's remarks then because secretly, he wanted it to be true. The man was amazing. Gorgeous. Then he realised – that Ace was Rimmer. They looked the same. And he found Ace gorgeous. Did that mean he found Rimmer gorgeous too?

Lister turned to look at Rimmer, only to find him nolonger standing there. He must have gone off to think. Hide, more like it, he thought as he wandered off to his bunk. _So, I find Rimmer attractive. _Lister thought to himself, thinking it would make him sick. But honestly – it didn't. He lay there, staring at the ceililng, lost in thought. Why did this Dave have to show up and confuse everything? If he hadn't crashed, then he wouldn't have met them and now Lister wouldn't be here contemplating Rimmer in strange new ways. _Ok, so they're not that new._ Lister remembered a couple of dreams he'd had of the man. He didn't share them, but he couldn't shake them… looking at him, and wanting to just grab him. Rimmer. RIMMER. Why the smeg did he want to grab Rimmer, even in a dream? Lister just put it down to loneliness. But, he supposed – maybe it was. Maybe being alone with Rimmer so long was what it took to love him. _Wait, what? Love? No. _Sure, he liked him more than when they met, but not that. Could it?

Darkness descended as the time flew by, and Rimmer didn't come and join him. His heart sank, but he wondered how long he had been wanting Rimmer around in his room. It suddenly occurred to him: if he had actually hated Rimmer, he would have turned him off. If he had really not liked him, he wouldn't have continued to share a room with him even after every other room on the entire ship became available. If he really didn't have deeper feelings for him, then why would he be feeling disappointed whenever Rimmer didn't come back to share their room. In all that time that he thought, he concluded…he LIKED Rimmer. He actually LIKED the smeghead. To be honest, he wasn't that bad anymore. He was even lightening up a little and relaxing. Without an authority to adhere to, he was being…well… pleasant. Almost. Maybe he just needed more confidence, and someone to lean on?

Why the smeg was he thinking that? First it was realising that he was actually attracted to men too, then it was realising it was actually the man Rimmer he was attracted to, and now he was thinking of what it would be like if he was with Rimmer?  
"What would it matter, it's not like Rimmer would go for that anyway." Lister muttered to himself in the dark. From all his snide remarks, it was quite clear that Rimmer liked women. And liked all men to like women. But there was something off there. Lister couldn't really pinpoint it, but deep in his curry-gut he knew that it just wasn't right. Rimmer, Arnold Rimmer, just didn't seem like a ladies man. In fact, he seemed like he was overcompensating for something that he didn't even realise. Almost like…forcing himself to…_No, smeg off…Rimmer's not gay at all. Not even a deeply repressed one wearing a straight mask. _But the statement only made him think further.

It must have been quite a day, with all this thinking on Lister's behalf. But it had to happen all at once – he never thought to think about it before.  
"Ok. Rimmer is convinced he's straight. Let's start there." Lister spoke to the darkness, unaware that holly was in fact listening.  
"Why? Denial probably. His parents didn't sound like people that would have put up with any of that smeg. So growing up he would have had to have thought that he could only be straight. That makes sense. But is he right?" Lister uttered. He thought back over their time together. He made jokes about his sex doll often, Rachel, but ….that's more about physically having sex than actually doing it with a woman. It's not like there are any male dolls about. When talking about his childhood, Rimmer never mentioned any relationships. He always said he wasn't interested, that he was more focused on school. Could it be because he wouldn't let himself be interested in the gender he was actually attracted to?  
"That's not enough evidence." Lister stated, almost worried at what he was coming up with.  
Come to think of it, he didn't really see into Rimmer's personal life that often. There was the psy-moon though. Now what happened there? Lister wondered if he could look at the memory in this new light.  
"Ok, so Rimmer was strung up all but naked. The women there didn't want him. He didn't want the women, he just wanted sexual contact…really. He sounds really lonely now…" Lister trailed off, feeling bad for the man.  
"But the monster, as Rimmer had said, had wanted to 'have him' for lack of better terms. And then there was his personality ghosts - I mean who in the smeg has their self-confidence and stuff dressed in fluffy pink and purple clothes? Was that a metaphor too? Hidden parts of himself that wanted to dress that way? It wasn't the only time he'd worn a dress – the time he had the holovirus. Of all the ridiculous outfits he could have worn, he chose a red and white dress. Does Rimmer secretly want to wear dresses?"  
"Yes."

Lister jumped and hit his head on the roof.  
"What the smeg, Hol? How long have you been listening?"  
"Oh, all of it I guess." Holly responded, her face appearing on the screen in the dull light. Lister rubbed his head before turning to the computer.  
"So how do you know what Rimmer wants?"  
"Well, I do run his program you know. I know everything there is to know about him."  
"So you could tell me all about him?"  
"Well no, confidentiality innit?"  
"But you just said he wanted to wear dresses!"  
"No, I just confirmed what you said. No problem with that." The senile computer said matter-of-factly.  
Lister decided to just go through his thought process out loud, with her saying yes or no, and not worry about the hypocrisy at play.

"So Rimmer wants to wear dresses. Does he know?"  
"No."  
"Ok. Does he want to wear other women's attire?"  
"Yes."  
"You know Hol, this doesn't sound very confidential. I mean, I don't really want to be told about his deepest private life. Reading a diary's one thing, but this is things that he doesn't even know about himself."  
"Hmm, I guess you're right. Fine, I'll let you work it all out on your own."

Lister half kicked himself, but the other half was proud to be so noble. Suddenly, he felt like he had been fish-slapped with another memory. Low Rimmer. When he met Low Rimmer, he was wearing high fishnet stockings, leather, a feather boa, and a myriad of other items that all said the same thing.  
"Oh smeg." Lister just stated. He remembered vividly how that Rimmer had said he was going to 'have' him. And so what if High Rimmer actually meant it romantically, when he said to High Lister that he loved him? High Lister reciprocated. That meant that he really DID like Rimmer. And so did Parallel Lister.

"Rimmer's gay. And he has no idea, he's in that much denial. And he likes me." Lister stated, trying to make it clear to himself.  
"Yes." Holly stated in the background.  
"Hol, where is he?"  
"Out in the engine room. Where he goes to hide or think."  
"Do you thinking about what I'm thinking about?"  
"I don't know, you'll have to ask him yourself."


End file.
